Turkey reconsiders discounted transit fees for ships Bosporus passage

Turkey is studying ways to make it more attractive for commercial ships to travel through a proposed canal that would be built in the next decade as an alternative to the heavily congested Bosporus Strait, Associated Press reports.

Transportation Minister Mehmet Habib Soluk said Thursday that Turkey could reconsider its policy of charging discounted fees for transit through the Bosporus Strait, a possible hint that those fees might be raised.

Increasing the Bosporus fees could encourage ships to use the proposed Canal Istanbul.

The new canal would create a second waterway linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.